The present invention relates generally to information delivery systems and, particularly, to a novel, World Wide Web/Internet-based, telecommunications network data management reporting and presentation service for customers of telecommunications service entities.
Telecommunications service entities, e.g., MCI, ATandT, Sprint, and the like, presently provide for the presentation and dissemination of customer account and network data management information to their customers predominantly by enabling customers (clients) to directly dial-up, e.g., via a modem, to the entity""s application servers to access their account information, or, alternately, via dedicated communication lines, e.g., ISDN, T-1, etc., enabling account information requests to be initiated through their computer terminal running, for example, a Windows(copyright)-based graphical user interface. The requests are processed by the entity""s application servers, which retrieves the requested customer information, e.g., from one or more databases, processes and formats the information for downloading to the client""s computer terminal.
Some types of data, e.g., xe2x80x9cpricedxe2x80x9d call detail data pertaining to a customer""s telecommunications number usage, is made available for customers in an aggregated or processed form and provided to customers, e.g., on a monthly basis. This type of data is analyzed to determine, for example, asset usage and trend information necessary, which is required for network managers to make critical business decisions. As an example, the assignee telecommunications carrier MCI Corporation provides an MCI ServiceView (xe2x80x9cMSVxe2x80x9d) product line for its business customers which includes several client-server based data management applications. One of these applications, referred to as xe2x80x9cPerspectivexe2x80x9d, provides call usage and analysis information that focuses on the presentation of and priced call detail data and reports from an MCI Perspective Data Server (xe2x80x9cStarPRxe2x80x9d). Another client-server based data management application, referred to as xe2x80x9cTraffic Viewxe2x80x9d, focuses on the presentation of real time call detail data and network traffic analysis/monitor information as provided from an MCI Traffic view server. Particularly, with respect to MCI""s Perspective system, customers are provided with their monthly priced and discounted raw call detail data, call detail aggregates, and statistical historical summary data. As such, the Perspective architecture is organized primarily as a batch midrange-based server data delivery mechanism with the data being typically delivered on a monthly basis, allowing for xe2x80x9cdelayedxe2x80x9d trending, call pattern analysis, repricing and invoice validation based on the customer""s call detail data. The trending, analysis, and repricing functionality is maintained in workstation-based software provided to customers for installation at customer sites on their PCS.
FIG. 1 illustrates the current architecture 10 for Perspective and Traffic View Systems which presently run on separate environments and are maintained independently of each other. The StarPR server provides a batch reporting mechanism focused primarily on providing billing data to 1-800/8xx, VNET, Vision, and other MCI customers and is used by MCI customers predominantly to do internal charge backs and to analyze billing usage. Alternately, or in addition, the customers use the data provided to them to do call traffic analysis, similar to TVS.
With specific reference to FIG. 1, the data collected is in the form of call detail records which are created by various MCI/Concert switches (not shown) whenever a telephone call is attempted in the MCI network and which includes information about call type, call origination and termination locations, date and time, added intelligent network services, any hop information, product type and other relevant information about the call. The Network Information Concentrator (xe2x80x9cNICxe2x80x9d) component 15 is a network element that collects the CDRs and sends them to appropriate locations via a Global Statistical Engine 17. The Global Statistical Engine 17 collects the CDRs and transforms, processes, and sends them to the TVS 20. The TVS provides access to this data through various statistical reports and real time monitoring engine 22 (xe2x80x9cRTMxe2x80x9d).
The CDRs from are also sent to the billing system which applied billing based on call detail values. These xe2x80x9cpricedxe2x80x9d CDRs are known as Billing Detail Records (xe2x80x9cBDRsxe2x80x9d) and are sent to a Perspective Host (xe2x80x9cPhostxe2x80x9d) server 25. The Phost server 25 filters out the BDRs not pertaining to the xe2x80x9cPerspectivexe2x80x9d customers, applies various transformations to the customer""s raw call detail data to generate summary data, and generates and formats the data for the various Perspective customers. This data is then compressed, sent to a document service center (xe2x80x9cDSCxe2x80x9d) and CD-ROM dispatcher (xe2x80x9cCDDxe2x80x9d) 34 entities which respectively, uncompresses the data and burns CD-ROMs comprising the customer""s raw call detail data and summary data, in addition to reference files and possibly application software (if not previously owned) enabling customers to perform analysis and trending of their Perspective data. These CD-ROMs are sent to the customers, usually on a billing cycle or monthly basis, who view their data through a Perspective workstation-based software application residing on that customer""s CPE, e.g., PC or workstation 36.
As shown in FIG. 1, the existing Perspective Host 25 mainframe-based data delivery system interfaces with all Perspective upstream feed systems, including billing systems and order entry, and processes the data, e.g., creates canned aggregates, for delivery to the document service center.
The following upstream feed systems include: 1) order entry information from a customer order entry system 19 (xe2x80x9cCORExe2x80x9d) and which information is used by the Perspective Host to determine what customer data to process and where to send it; 2) VNET and Vision monthly billing data feeds from a commercial billing system (xe2x80x9cNBCSxe2x80x9d) system 23; 3) a Toll-free monthly billing data feed from a T/F database feed 27; and, a Concert Virtual Network Services (xe2x80x9cCVNSxe2x80x9d) product feed from a CVNS database 31. In order for all the CDR and data feed information to be processed by the Phost server 25, various reference files and processing rules are provided including: alphanumeric translation reference files from the NCBS billing system 23 and an NPA/NXX-state-city and country code lookup reference file originating from a calling area data base (xe2x80x9cCADBxe2x80x9d) 35.
While effective for its purpose, the current data management and presentation architecture only provides customers with their priced call detail data on a monthly basis, usually in the form of a canned report. This is not sufficient for an increasing number of customers who, to remain competitive, are required to have updated and real-time access to their data to enable them to make their critical business decisions quicker. Moreover, there are a variety of independent data management tools and legacy reporting systems having disparate systems and infrastructures providing little or no cross application interoperability and data sharing, thus, requiring customers to use separate applications to gain access to their data.
Furthermore, existing telecommunications service provider reporting systems are limited in that reports generated are of a narrow view, and are delivered at predetermined times with predetermined formats. These prior art reporting systems do not enable the generation of ad-hoc reports. Moreover, legacy platforms including reporting data are reaching the architectural limits of scalability in terms of the total customers they can support, total online data they can present, total historical data they can keep and type and number of applications they can support.
It would thus be highly desirable to provide a data management product that is a Web-based (Internet and IIntranet) client-server application providing priced call detail data information to customers in a variety of detailed report formats comprising specific customer account information.
It would additionally be highly desirable to provide a Web-based (Internet and IIntranet) data management tool having a unique back-end infrastructure for a Web-based client-server application which provides expedient and secure data access and reporting services to customers at any time, from any web browser on any computer terminal anywhere in the world.
The present invention is directed to a novel IIntranet/Internet/Web-based data management tool that provides a common GUI enabling the requesting, customizing, scheduling and viewing of various types of priced call detail data reports pertaining to a customer""s usage of telecommunications services. The Intranet/Internet/Web-based reporting system tool comprises a novel Web-based, client-server application integrated with an operational data management/storage infrastructure that enables customers to access their own relevant data information timely, rapidly and accurately through the GUI client interface. The operational database system infrastructure particularly is configured to meet a customer""s real-time data processing and storage requirements and is easy to deploy and manage, and further, ensures upward and downward scalability. It enables effective storage of data from a variety of independently developed legacy systems and, is readily integrated into a novel Web-based (Internet and Intranet) reporting system tool that enables customers to customize and directly access their own relevant data report information. The world wide web/Internet-based client-server data management and reporting tool employs a platform-independent, i.e., JAVA-based, network centric GUI client presentation layer and an objects/dispatcher/proxy layer access architecture.
Particularly, the telecommunications data management/system architecture is integrated with a novel Web/Internet based reporting system, referred to as networkMCI Interact (xe2x80x9cnMCIxe2x80x9d), described in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/159,409. The back-end data management/system architecture, referred to herein as xe2x80x9cStarODSxe2x80x9d, implements a Data Warehouse approach to maintaining data obtained from upstream billing systems, i.e., priced call detail data, and which data may be made readily available for reporting on a daily basis. In this approach, priced call detail data is maintained in datamarts and operational data stores capable of meeting real-time processing and storage requirements. Particularly, these datamarts may be partitioned based on various criteria, e.g., customer id, to enable easier management of data by providing scalability, and enabling more control of over hardware and software resources, in a cost-effective way. Included in this datamart approach is a back-end server component provided to receive data access requests from various users in the form of a report request, interactive data analysis request or data mining request. This server routes the query to the appropriate data marts, data warehouse or operational data store and responds to the requestor with the result set.
The nMCI Interact system is a layer functioning to enable customers to request reporting functionality across the Internet. This report request functionality includes routing requests to appropriate datamarts, e.g., real-time reporting requests will be satisfied by real-time database. Additionally, the interface provides customers with the ability to schedule and prioritize reports, format report request result sets, and provides for load balancing, report request validation, query generation and execution. Through a common GUI, customers are enabled to access their own metered data, i.e., Perspective or usage analysis data.
In accordance with the principles of the present invention, there is provided a Web/Internet based reporting system for communicating data information from an enterprise intranet database to a client terminal via an integrated interface comprising: a client browser application located at the client terminal for enabling interactive Web based communications with the reporting system, the client terminal identified with a customer and providing the integrated interface; at least one secure server for managing client sessions over the Internet, the secure server supporting a first secure socket connection enabling encrypted communication between the browser application client and the secure server; a dispatch server for communicating with the secure server through a firewall over a second socket connection, the first secure and second sockets forming a secure communications link, the dispatch server enabling forwarding of a report request message and an associated report response message back to the client browser over the secure communications link; a report manager server for maintaining an inventory of reporting items associated with a customer and managing the reporting of customer-specific data information in accordance with a customer request message, the report manager accessing reporting items based on a customer identity and report name from a first database, and generating a response message including a metadata description of the reporting items; and, decision support server interfacing with the report manager for accessing the customer-specific data from the enterprise intranet database in accordance with the customer identity and report name, wherein the retrieved data and the metadata description of the reporting item are utilized to generate a completed report for presentation to the customer via the interface.
Advantageously, the novel Web/Internet based reporting system integrated with the data management system permits use of existing hardware while allowing future growth to utilize new equipment at less cost and further, allows for incremental expansion as applications and database capacities grow.